[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Classic Motorsports]
Today, we take our access to racing venues for granted. Most SCCA regions have two or three road courses within a 3-hour drive. In the late ’40s and early ’50s, however, the growth of sports car interest and the number of vehicles coming into the country …
I miss the old Marlboro Raceway in Maryland.Jumping in and out of the oval.
And since then Thompson has reopened a road course, and now it puts on probably more events on that than the oval. It's gone full circle.
Here are a couple of photos from my archive that fit this article. Captions and photo credit below each.
Poison Lil being attended to at Linden Airport N.J. 1949 photo by W.G.Giltzow Anscochrome transparency.
A Sunbeam and a Ford approach the exit of the oval onto the road coarse during the VSCC-VSCCA tran-Atlantic challenge 1956. W.G.Giltzow damaged Ektachrome.
Thompson VSCCA 1975 The photographer from the first two pics leads a pack just after exiting the oval in his Taraschi. Photo by W.A.Giltzow Ektachrome 64 CanonFT Tamron 80/250 lens
A couple more from the VSCCA in 1975.
A Frazer Nash LeMans, Talbot America, and Bentley exit the oval, seen from the bridge in previous pic. W.A.Giltzow CanonFT Tamron 80-250, Ektachrome 64
This MG TC is about to launch back onto the oval. He would get at least 3 wheels up every lap, but I couldn't get a good enough sight line to photograph. It looked super scary, and this fellow was the only one there to really send it. We who had not been there before went away unwilling to run there again. Pavement was really chunking along the back straight too. same credit as above.
A practise standing start grid ready. M.J.Giltzow, Ektachrome 100 unknown rangefinder point+shoot.
I love the vintage photos. Thanks for sharing!
Come see 'Poison Lil' at the Saratoga Auto Museum, along with other race cars, and the 'BOND IN MOTION' exhibit of Bond film cars !
- Mark Axen,
Saratoga Auto Museum, docent
Great story, thanks for preserving the history of Thompson!
Love the classic photos, amazing that they are from Bill Glitzow, I met him at his garage The Pit Stop in Montclair (NJ) in 1974, I can still see him in my memory, repairing the fiberglass nose of his Taraschi damaged the previous weekend at Bridgehampton. I had crewed for my brothers F/V driver school at Thompson the previous year!
I saw my first sports car race at Thompson in 1958. Shortly afterward I bought a used Leica with paper route earnings. Here's my favorite Thompson photo, 1959, about a month before I graduated from High School:
50 years later, my girlfriend Karin, whose husband raced a Giulietta at Thompson in the '60s, and I walked the second (2-mile) course. Here she is at the head of the grid; I'm at position 5.
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